Posted on 09/27/2010 8:07:39 PM PDT by NoLibZone
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Although the U.S. Senate failed to pass legislation that would have helped children of undocumented immigrants work toward legal status and get a college education, an official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed confidence Sept. 24 that the idea "is gaining more support on the merits."
"These issues take some time to pass, even if the American public is ahead of their elected officials," said Kevin Appleby, director of migration policy and public affairs for the USCCB Office of Migration and Refugee Services. He was commenting on the Senate's 56-43 vote Sept. 21 against a defense authorization bill that included the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act as an amendment.
The measure would have regularized the legal status of those who came to the United States before age 16, lived here at least five years, graduated from a U.S. high school and were pursuing higher education or military service.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, approximately 114,000 young people who have already obtained at least an associate's degree would be immediately eligible for conditional lawful permanent resident status under the legislation. Another 612,000 high school graduates could be eligible if they graduated from college or completed two years of military service.
The DREAM Act, introduced in Congress in various forms since 2003, has been supported by Catholic leaders and those in Catholic higher education.
In a teleconference shortly before the vote, Georgetown University President John J. DiGioia said the young undocumented immigrants who would have been affected by the DREAM Act have "played by our rules" and "succeeded by our rules."
"By everything that we stand for as a people, they should have the opportunity to continue their education in this country," he said.
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles, a longtime supporter of the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform, said in his blog that he has met with "enthusiastic young men and women who graduate from a college or university here in Los Angeles, but because they lack legal papers, they cannot find employment. The same is true of these young people who join a branch of the military. That makes no sense whatsoever."
"I met recently a young man who just graduated from a major university in Los Angeles with his degree in engineering," the cardinal said. "He is so anxious to put his education and skills at the service of our country and our community, but lacks legal residency papers. What a waste of the gifts and talents of these young people all across the country."
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the only Hispanic member of the Senate, said shortly before the vote that he would introduce soon "legislation, not a framework, but legislation in the U.S. Senate, outlining comprehensive immigration reform to provide "a pathway toward earned legalization for those who are in the shadows who will be able to come into the full light and observe the dignity that they deserve with what they are helping America to achieve."
"I believe that the economy is not a reason to oppose immigration reform, but a reason to have immigration reform," he added. "I believe in the dignity of each and every individual and the concept of family values that we hear so often in the senate needs to be preserved. We cannot see families ripped apart."
END
I’m sure the Catholic Church wouldn’t mind doing a little of the heavy lifting here and picking up the tab for this so-called DREAM Act. Why does it always have to be the taxpayers?
I’m an admirer of the Catholic Church, but their open borders position is flat wrong, religion-wise and policy-wise as well.
It is a great thing for America and for Catholics too that the DREAM Act failed.
They should not have been admitted to college without "legal papers." Now that colleges admit illegals, the next step for liberals is to whine about no professional jobs for illegals after graduation. How many American citizens applied to colleges and were turned away because illegals took their places?
How many American professionals does the Cardinal want to be turned away from jobs to accommodate illegals?
Illegals should not be here and they should not benefit from being here.
One thing that I rarely see mentioned is why has 15% of Mexico's population left the homeland for the US? Why is Mexico a 3rd world country while the US and Canada are top of the first world?
Personally, I think The US Conference of Catholic Bishops should be focusing on how to help Mexican's stay in their homeland in a safe and productive 1st world country.
Let me be the first to state emphatically that the USCCB DOES NOT REPRESENT THE TRADITIONAL POSITION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!
The USCCB is full of socialist, modernist, liberation theology whack-jobs, who have succeeded in destroying the Mass of all time, subverting Catholic teaching, and undermining the legitimacy and constancy of the Roman Catholic Faith.
These are the same individuals who betrayed the Catholic faithful by covering up for pederasts homosexual preditors at the expense of the innocent, because they are mostly cut from the same cloth.
These are the same individuals who stated there was no substantial difference between the Lutheran heresy of Salvation by Faith Alone, and the Catholic dogma of Salvation through the grace of the sacraments.
Their latest position on the DREAM Act is more of their modernist quackery at its worst.
This is one of those few issues where the Catholic Church is on the wrong side. In their defense, they never claimed to respect national boundaries.
You think the Catholic Church opposes the Dream Act?
That is not a position of the CAtholic Church, but rather the USCCB.
Traditional Catholics sure as hell do! The USCCB and the present clowns running Rome are NOT representative of traditional Catholic teaching. They are traitors to the faith. They are impostors. They are subversives.
This is a flat out lie.
It is in "reconciling recognition for the rights of the individual with the principle of national sovereignty, making specific reference to the needs of security, public order, and the control of borders," that cooperating states and organizations can contribute, he [Pope Benedict XVI] explained.
Are you referring to the Pope?
“You think the Catholic Church opposes the Dream Act?”
I am Catholic and I oppose the Dream Act.
Bishops and the liberal agitprop staffers in a DC outfit do not represent the whole Church on this matter, but their own agenda, which is to fill the pews with our ‘immigrant’ brethren, irregardless of the laws.
They forgot Jesus’ words ... “render unto Ceaser”
From
http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-6-number-4/principle-subsidiarity
The Principle of Subsidiarity
by David A. Bosnich
One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.
This is why Pope John Paul II took the “social assistance state” to task in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus. The Pontiff wrote that the Welfare State was contradicting the principle of subsidiarity by intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility. This “leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.”
In spite of this clear warning, the United States Catholic Bishops remain staunch defenders of a statist approach to social problems. They have publicly criticized recent congressional efforts to reform the welfare system by decentralizing it and removing its perverse incentives. Their opposition to the Clinton Administration’s health care plan was based solely upon its inclusion of abortion funding. They had no fundamental objection to a takeover of the health care industry by the federal government. ...
Far too many American Catholic officials are closeted-gay liberals who want to raise my taxes and pick and choose which parts of the American Constitution they can ignore.
NO. I am no sedivacanist!
But the majority of Cardinals that populate the Holy City are in no way true to the constant teachings of the Church. A great many of them are masons or have masonic affiliations. Else they are in bed with Marxists and socialist. They are no more than political bureaucrats more interested in compromise so to hold their positions of power, rather than holding to the Catholic Faith.
2241
Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.
LEGAL immigrants. Key distinction there. Juridical by its very nature implies the upholding of the law. Illegal immigration is just that... a VIOLATION of the established LAW of this land.
Care to back that up, or is it just your bigotry thing.
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